Strength
by MadreLoca
Summary: He still had his job, home, family, and friends. He had his own life.  And after tonight he would still have his strength


Title – Strength

Summary - He still had his job, home, family, and friends. He had his own life. And after tonight he would still have his strength

Rating – T

Comments – Inspired by the argument between Reid and JJ when Red confessed that he had thought about drugs again. Story takes place anytime between the end of 6 and the beginning of 7. Anyway, I hope I have gotten his thought process as close to what would be going through someone's head in a time like this as possible. I can't even begin to imagine the power of an IV drug like D, but I remember playing out a similar scene to this when I stopped cutting, and that's technically an addiction.

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><p><em>I'm caught in a daydream with nowhere to run and hide. The world rushes by me, it's leaving me here all alone" <em>

_Alanis Morisette Rain_

He felt cold. Not just cold like the heater had gone out again on his junker of a car in the middle of winter, but a deep, bitter, unrelenting, paralyzing _cold_ that could not be remedied by any soft, thick blanket or steaming cup off coffee.

Spencer Reid was beginning to believe that he would never again feel warmth, not in his body, not in his heart. Emily Prentiss left a dark void, a void that created a chilling gust that engulfed all of him, spreading and overtaking his entire inner being. He knew of only one thing that may be able to melt the ice flowing through his veins, to make him feel warm, then numb, then nothing at all, if only for a few hours.

Dilauded.

There was one night in particular that he came very, very close. Emily was dead, Seaver and Hotch had just transferred out of the BAU, there were talks of transfer for Garcia and, although JJ was back, he felt that the team who was his only real family was falling apart.

_I just don't understand any of it anymore._

He could almost hear Gideon's voice speaking those words that he had only ever read (exactly two hundred and eighty seven times.) Reid didn't understand it either. He didn't understand why Emily never told anyone what was happening so they could help her. He didn't understand why he couldn't move on after Emily's death. He didn't understand why he was never allowed to see her to say goodbye. He didn't understand why after four years of sobriety _to the date_ he was sitting on the edge of his bed with his comforter draped over his shoulders shaking and shuddering form head to toe holding a clear glass vile of Dilauded in one hand and a syringe in the other, staring down at them with eyes glazed from sleeplessness as if these things combined were his best friend, or worst enemy.

His mind rushed like a river just before a waterfall, carrying with it the floating debris of what his life was quickly becoming. The rush was so overwhelming that it washed away any thoughts of his own. All he could here in his head was the white noise of blood rushing and the voices of people he knew or had known resounding as if this was a melodramatic love story.

_For the past thirteen years I've never left home without it… _

_I just don't understand any of it anymore._

_Tell me it doesn't make it better._

_Let it make you a better profiler, a better person._

_No, I'm _using _you!_

_You're depressed about Emily. We all are. I miss her every day._

_I've never seen you act like this._

_She never made it off the table._

_For a genius, well, that's just dumb._

…_because I know if I forget that, I'll lose my gun, my credentials, my home, everything_.

_Everything._

Everything.

With a shaking hand, Spencer reached into the pocket of his khaki pants and retrieved his most valued possession: his one-year pin.

_For the past thirteen years I've never left home without it_ _because I know if I forget that, I'll lose my gun, my credentials, my home, everything._

He thought about Bob and his one-year pin; the gift, or loan rather, that he had been given three years and three months ago. He wasn't sure he would have been able to make it without that constant reminder…

…a constant reminder that no high was worth loosing everything.

Suddenly Spencer became angry, not with Tobias Hankle or with Ian Doyle. He was angry with himself for falling into such a moment of had to be strong in order to keep what he still had. He still had his job. He still had his home. He still had his mother. He still had Garcia, JJ, Morgan, and Rossi. Most of all he still had his own life.

"I'm not WEAK!" he shouted into the silence at his own demons, wound up his arm like a baseball player would and hurled the vile at the wall in front of him, sending glass shattering and the drug splattering, leaving a wet stain on the off white wall paper.

He still had his job, home, family, and friends. He had his own life.

And after tonight he would still have his strength.


End file.
